Originally Posted by NEDude

If it is not time to leave, it will be soon. The QAR fines are relatively new at my company, at least the amounts and the way they are assessing them. It was a formally announced change at the beginning of this year, so no, it was not what I signed up for. I think at my company the only happy expats are the guys from Mexico. Every single other guy is not happy. Many have left and the rest of us, from Europe, North America and South America, are all looking to leave or will not renew the contract. We lost 25% of our expat pilot group in three months from guys not renewing or resigning.

I do agree with you about increasing the stabilised criteria, I do the same thing, I am stable at 2,000 feet. But the punishment for even a minor violation, one that would be hard to detect without a computer, is draconian and has the opposite effect of being safe. The entire world knows this with the exception of the Chinese.

One thing to keep in mind with the Chinese is that China spent the better part of a millennium trying to isolate itself from the rest of the world, including even its own neighbours. In fact China has only really tried to reach out and become part of the global community over the past 25 years or so. That is part of the reason even their neighbours have a hard time dealing with the Chinese (I am talking on a one to one and tourist type of level, not on a government level - although that is an issue as well). China in many ways has developed over the last 500+ years in an alternate reality and now is trying to make the rest of the world adapt to its ways. I always tell people that China is really a third world country with first world window dressing.